Week Sixty

The easiest day to write about: we start off the day (Milla's tooth is now okay - good ol' doxycycline) making a list of things to do and buy before hitting Syria, and then set out to do them. I leave Milla moving her damp clothes around on the hotel terrace, phone Ramazan from the Post Office (still no luck), phone Tourist Information in Urgup (the woman doesn't speak English and asks me to phone back later), drop a last film, and settle into the internet place. When Milla collects me at half twelve (she's been buying vitamins, coffee, and checking Tourist Information - on holiday, and getting bus times and prices), I've still only got the site up to Selcuk (I'm seriously miles behind). I phone Urgup again and get the same woman (she tells me to phone back in one hour), so we go for a durum kebab (which we're going to have to start thinking of as shwarma again) and discuss our respective days.
In the afternoon, Milla carries on looking for supplies while I hit the phone (the English-speaking man in Urgup works out which lokanta/restaurant I'm talking about, gives me a non-working phone number for them, and offers to go and look himself this afternoon), then the internet again. I break later to collect the photos and mail them, and phone Urgup again: the guy asked, but they didn't have my hat, so I guess someone just picked it up and walked off with it - ah well. Then it's back to the internet place, where Milla joins me and we stay until early evening. She sends emails home and to the back (she's been having real problems checking her account using their internet service) and I skip out Fethiye to Ankara and update some of last week instead.
We visit and optician who is less than helpful about replacing Milla's contact lens - he presses her to take disposables, and quotes a ludicrous price: then we hit the pension (where Milla's tidied the room), so some admin stuff, so out for something to eat (we finally find a pide place right in the centre), come back and check/update the money situation, and finally go to bed.
Today saw our fifth week on the road and, in Turkey at least, we seem to have settled down (after the nightmare of Istanbul) to just over £150/$225 a week for both of us. Today also saw our first £1000 on this new leg - it lasted 45 days, and was mainly £209 on transportation, £190 on accommodation, £185 on food and £156 on entry fees. Other costs included £59 on films and processing, £19 on postage and packing, £15 on internet and £15 on cigarettes (that was good!), and only £7 on medical costs. The last costs for getting Milla ready to travel from Romania came to £71.

The first day of Ramadan, and Milla's up 40 minutes before me (!) to work on a letter home: the first thing we both do, of course, is eat and smoke during daylight hours - this is the way we mean to continue in Ramadan (though perhaps not in public in Syria). By the sounds of the street below us, tempers are already beginning to fray. We spend ages packing (Milla has real problems fitting everything into her rucksack, and ends up having to take another), then I nip out to change half our remaining Turkish money (the big exchange place nearest the bus station probably gives the worst rates, but we're at least fairly confident that the rates are genuine), and then we're off at 09.40.

We figure we want to make this trip during daylight hours (better to arrive in a new city and new country when you can see where you're going), and there's only one company with a bus leaving mid-morning. 10.00 apparently, but the slightly battered old bus arrives at the stance at 09.50, and gradually fills up until 10.23, when it finally pulls away (Antakya - small, laid-back, grubby and with nothing to see and no nightlife gets 3/10). By 11.15 we're at the border and everything stops: there are long queues of trucks (mostly) and taxis and buses and some private cars. A guy from the bus gathers all the passports, and everyone gets off to buy Duty Free or tea/coffee. As we drive away some time (20 minutes) later, enquiries reveal that everyone else actually got off to collect their passports individually - yep, we're driving away and our passports are still with the police at the border. The bus stops, reverses a bit and we go back to the police control - another woman from the bus follows us, obviously in the same situation.
Syrian border control is next (incidentally, there's barbed wire all over the place): this time we go with the guy who takes our passports. There's a big entry hall, and instructions in Arabic and English (of a sort) on the wall: we have to fill out a little card, and register with the police once in Syria, and declare if we're bringing in more than $5000 cash. Seems simple enough until we see the little cards, which are in Arabic only (and pink). The very uniformed controllers process us regardless (though much slower than locals) and stamp our blank cards - at one point, the officer in question disappears into a back office with them - I'm sure he's querying the (modified from one month to three) visas, but it doesn't seem to cause a problem (just a delay). There's a guy from a travel agency there, accompanying a group of foreigners, whom we chat with - as of a couple of months ago some travel agencies (Syrian only, presumably) have been able to issue visas for whatever prices they want (these guys paid $15 instead of $52). Ah well: good to know for next time.
The customs officers, a little down the road, are far more interested in the bus than in any of our bags: they get out spanners and inspect/remove panels, and shine torches in little corners of the hold and so on. They don't even glance at our bags. And after that, and after an hour in total since reaching the border, we pull into Syria - and suddenly, apart from the occasional "Welcome to Syria" notice in the first 250m, everything's written in squiggly. Other instantly noticeable differences are the soil (red/brown clay rather than the volcanic and limestone grays), the architecture (lower buildings, pointed arches, overhangs, and so on), the amazing undulating road (that's undulating from side to side, rather than the more usual lengthways) and the security-perimetered but apparently empty Palestinian camp just after the border.
Bizarrely, just as we think we're making good progress, the bus stops for a rest break - not just for a cigarettes or a coffee, but for an incredible 50 minutes during which a number of people (all the crew) have a full meal and everyone else hangs around watching the passing traffic. Much of that passing traffic is dinky little three-wheeled vehicles - little motorbike-fronts with back halfs (like you see in travelogues about India): our best sight is a tiny little kid of 8 or 9 driving one. Another note - the garage has WD40 for sale, which I haven't seen since leaving the west. Eventually we pull away, and do the last 45km into Aleppo/"Haleb" (Idleb thanked our visit, on a little sign as we left the county), arriving at almost exactly 14.00. It's taken only 95 minutes driving, but 60 minutes clearing the border and 50 minute stopped for no real reason: perhaps they were keen to hit a generous scheduled arrival time . . . .

There's one brief stop beside a bus station (Aleppo has three, apparently - we want the middle one), where we decide not to get off, and then the bus terminates apparently at a random point on a major road. What we've seen of Aleppo so far is already totally different from European Turkey: there's far more space and green between the new buildings, and in general these buildings are lower (Turkey's outskirts are all blocks, many only half-finished: the shells are there, the fittings aren't), and in the outskirts the minor roads are unpaved (as in Morocco, they seem to consider water, telephone and electricity essential but not decent roads). We stand on the pavement and have a cigarette and try to figure out where the fuck we are in this city of three million: a little guy from a little travel agency office approaches us and tells us exactly where we are - just behind the central bus station, which was our original target. Excellent. He also, being a travel agency, recommends a hotel and contacts a guy from there to come and get us - that's fine, because (as happened in Antalya) his accommodation is on the same little street as two of our pre-decided choices.
Bizarrely, this "hotel" turns out to be a hostel: a real, honest-to-God hostel - the first since Istanbul. It's full of Americans and Australians in non-smoking dorms; there's a common area, TV, limited email access (in Syria!), laid-on tours, and so on. Frankly, a room full of people speaking English is quite intimidating, and they only have one double room free, and that's miles from the showers and toilet (and its window opens onto temporary scaffolding). We decide to leave our bags there, ask them to keep that room for an hour (it's quite cheap), and go out to look for something else. We find another place quite quickly, for $1 more, with ensuite shower/toilet and a balcony and no foreigners that we can see, so we move our bags and then head out - there's only an hour and a half of daylight to go, so there's time for a quite look around. There's a bit of rain, and people have been telling us all afternoon that it's the first rain of the year (!), but it's very light (for a Scot and a Romanian) and certainly not enough to deter us.

We're staying in the New Town, which isn't all that new - mainly late Ottoman and French Colonial buildings in approximate grid patterns. They're pretty much all flat-roofed, and along the longer roads many single buildings have been replaced by little concrete blocks over the years. We strike east to the clock tower that pretty much marks the three-way intersection of the New Town, Old Town and Christian Quarter. After something to eat (street shwarma), we strike into the maze of streets that's the Old Town - the souq there spills out across the entire district. Ethnic sights there include the traffic jams in narrow streets (the lanes are wide enough for one Toyota van and half a person) and people loading up (and shopping with) donkeys as if they're little vans. Seeing people haggling and buying and selling, with their donkeys parked outside, is like going back in time hundreds (or thousands) of years.
We finally emerge at the Great Mosque (the top of its minaret, like others in the area, is illuminated in a sort of sickly neon green), unfortunately in the middle of a multi-year restoration: we meet a guy who shows us the medrese (madrassa in Arabic) over the street, with its hugely ornate mihrab and infinite selection of postcards. He invites us for a tea ("Arabic hospitality") which turns out to be at a little antique and jewellery shop where he presses Milla to buy a necklace. Needless to say we leave without buying anything, but with some useful information - the most important of which is that Ramadan doesn't start until tomorrow: no wonder we saw so many people eating and smoking in the streets, and were able to buy a shwarma during daylight hours. We also learn that Syrian Arabic for yes is "ay" (possibly from French colloquial "weh"), which is easy and also different from what's in our Arabic phrasebook.

We meander back towards the New Town, taking in night-time views of the museum and the Assad Statue, shopping for supplies (they have instant noodles!), locating Tourist Information (naturally closed, but useful for tomorrow), and wandering up to the Baron Htel. It's very grand, this ex-haunt of T.E., but the rooms are out of our league and they won't let us sit at the bat unless we drink their over-priced alcohol (coffee-drinkers have to drink in the lounge), so we leave and head back to our little hotel room with its cranky ceiling fan and its cockroach.
Milla goes to sleep almost immediately, while I have a long, long shower in the hot, hot water.

Today we really do wake up during Ramadan, we believe, and have coffee and noodles and cigarettes before setting out - we also trip the hotel's fuse with Milla's old element (the same re-wired one which tripped the electrics in the Travellers' Hostel in Cesky Krumlov). We got up late (08.00), so it's impractical to set out for any of the sites around Aleppo - I guess we'll stay in the city, then: that's a pretty definite decision by the time we eventually exit the room (10.00 or so), pay for another night's accommodation, and hit the streets.
There's a clear and marked change since yesterday, and it's in the food arena - there isn't any: or rather there's no street food - there's still plenty of food you can buy, take home and eat later (ie. after sunset, for the sunset meal of "iftaar"). The little eateries have no meat cooking, and in those with chairs and tables they're still folded/stacked away. Even more bizarrely, no-one's smoking - at least in the street: instead, in the streets, tempers are that little bit more frayed - more car-horns, brakes screeching, people shouting. It's all descended one step closer to Tangiers.

We're trying to be good muslims as well, mostly out of politeness and a fear of being stoned by locals: we're also trying to be legal, so we check out a money exchange place (having kept back 50% of our remaining Turkish lira in case the rate was better here) - the rate is much worse (15% worse!), but is more than a guy offered in the hotel this morning. We hang onto our lira and head for the immigration office to see about registering. The ground floor is all in Arabic and the first floor is much the same except for one door marked "Sejours": enquiries there don't lead to much communication, but we do get four copies of a form and a requirement for four passport photos to go with them. Milla thinks this is for "registering", I think it's for a visa extension (our entry stamp only allows us in for 15 days, according to text on the originally visa from Bucharest), so we trek across town to Tourist Information to find out. The women there (who are all pregnant) know all about the 15-day limit and extensions, but nothing about any other registration process. Otherwise they're helpful, with a free map, information on where microbuses leave from, details of an optician and so on. "We don't deal with Turkish Lira" is the response to our exchange question: this is pretty much the same response we got at a bank we tried on the way here. There seems to be a little tension there - on maps (TV weather forecasts, map from Tourist Information), the Hatay region around Antakya is clearly shown as part of Syria: that could explain it.
We detour by our hotel (for a cigarette) and then have a chat with one of the staff from the hostel place: again, he's fairly clued up on the 15-day requirement but knows nothing about "registering" on arrival. Hm - it seems that this "requirement" is either a myth, or nobody does it. We therefore decide not to. Instead we'll spend the rest of the day doing the tourist thing. First up, the Old Town.

The Old Town is walled, or rather was walled since only about 25% of the circuit and five of the gates survives: these are largely obscured by modern (100-200 years old) houses and walls, but can sometimes be glimpsed peeking through. We enter through the Bab Antakya (Antioch Gate), a solid Arab defensive structure which is a very impressive surprise considering the twisting narrow alley you take to get to it. From there we're into souq territory again, and it's mostly clothes and material and gold that we pass as we head eastwards. We also pass, and look into, a number of khans (Arabic caravanserai) embedded in the network of partly-covered shopping alleys. Originally an integral part of the old east-west silk route, they're still in use as shops, little factories, storage areas and so on. We also pass numerous donkeys and a couple of sheep, which Milla says hello it: she's very taken with the donkeys, with their big sad eyes, and very non-taken with their regular over-loading and solid thwacks with a stick which is the steering mechanism.

I'm suffering in the sun (very bright without my hat, even though the temperature's only in the 20s), and am feeling nauseous and dizzy by the time we reach the Great Mosque again. It's apparently open to visitors, despite the ongoing restoration, but not at the precise time we get there (closed around early afternoon). Instead we press on east to the Citadel, which dominates the eastern end of the old town (though is obviously invisible from the souqs): there are five large terraced cafés here, presumably packed normally but now all closed except one - and it has hardly any customers: times must be tough for all sorts of business at this time of year. The citadel is built on a mound which is so regular that it's got to be at least partially artificial - there's an empty moat/ditch running around the base. The only entry, other than scrambling down and then up and then over the high walls, is across an impressive stone bridge with thick gatehouses at both ends: there's a sign there saying Syrians £30, "Other Nationalities and Foreigners" (which amuses me) £150. Thankfully there's also a student price of £15. Having saved $60 each in Turkey (after recouping the cost of the card), it looks like we could do the same in Syria - excellent.

We arrived late, and only have about half an hour to look round - we could probably have done with 45-60 minutes, but realistically there's not a lot to see inside. Around the walls and particularly the main gatehouse are lots of good passages and chambers: there's a big (restored, presumably) wooden-panelled hall with stained glass windows, which is very impressive. Other than that and the superb views, there's the palace (low walls remaining, and restoration ongoing) and a couple of fairly dull mosques. They're on the flat hall-like Arabic model, rather than the high-domed and airy Ottoman lines. The Grand Mosque, like that in Antakya, is the same - good gates and minarets, but the actual halls are . . . well, halls.

Pretty much last out, as usual, we cross the road to the Shouna Khan - it's all upmarket stalls and the only people shopping there are foreigners: our reason for being there is to see the Director. Apparently Whirling Dervishes perform here ("folk dances", the tourist leaflet calls it) from time to time, since their normal venue is being renovated. Apparently also, however, the Director of this khan goes home at 14.00. Ah well - we head back into the maze of little lanes that comprises the Old Town and reach the Dervishes' normal venue - the Bimaristan Arghan, a former lunatic asylum. An old guy who speaks hardly any English shoes us round part of the complex (indeed under a kind of leisurely renovation) - it's all very peaceful and designed with little courtyards and fountains: possibly it was only for wealthy mad people.

We head back towards the hotel in the fading light - it's only 15.30, but most of the shops and stalls are closing and people are starting to rush home for sunset and the breaking of the fast. The hectic streets are worse than normal, and the blare of horns is deafening - god knows what it's like when Ramadan's in the summer months and they have to fast for longer. We nip in to visit the Grand Mosque, now open, but a couple of guys try to charge us a dollar to get in (Milla has to don a full-smock affair, rather than just the headscarf required in Turkey - incidentally, Aleppo's the first place we've seen women in the full black thing - I don't know how they see, but many of them don't seem to see very well judging by how they walk and cross roads). We glance around the concrete and scaffolding of the courtyard and decided not to bother with the mosque: our decision is influenced by the fact someone else breezes in and isn't asked for anything.
Around the area of our hotel are a number of little cafés and eateries ("restaurants" would be an exaggeration) - the tables are half-full of people just sitting there, looking at their watches. On one table a couple of guys actually have a salad sitting, untouched, between them - we do spot one guy whose resolve had broken: he was smoking a cigarette.
At 16.36, just after we get to the hotel, sunset is market by loud cannon (or possibly fireworks) going off around the city, and wailing from the minarets (something in Arabic - possibly "thank Allah, we can eat now"). We hang around until the first rush of diners, and then go out for a fast-breaking half-chicken, chips and salad meal at one of the local places (Milla thinks I am "delicate", because I don't want to peel apart the vertebrae with my teeth and suck out the spinal column). Then we set off north into the Al Azizieh quarter, full of women without headscarves (well, 40%) and neon shop-signs (yes, all the shops are opening again), a caf�Ecalled "Internet Coffee" which doesn't seem to have any computers, and a "Nighet Glup", which is quite tempting. We window-shop, looking at jewellery and watches and clothes and stuff: highlights are a novelty lighter in the shape of a miniature fire-extinguisher and an Assad keyring (which we didn't buy - I'm holding out for Assad socks). We do buy a cheapish baseball cap to keep the sun off me until we find a decent replacement hat. Oh, and none of the pharmacies sell anti-malaria prophylactics, except chloroquine (which is useless in most places). Also of note, our old friend SQNY is all over the place here: cheap imitation they may be, but in Syria it looks as if they're comfortably out-performing the original.
After that, back to the hotel and to sleep.

We get up at about 08.00 and, short of funds, go out at 09.30 to look for someone to change either our remaining Turkish Lira, or US Dollar Travellers' Cheques (no ATMs in Syria, it seems). The exchange place we visited yesterday isn't open, but we find a little man in the street who eventually gives us 1950S£ for 71 million (in Turkey I got 2000S£ for 66 million) which is not great, but I lose <10%. Travellers' Cheques are more problematic: the first bank we try has a "computer problem"; the second flatly won't take them, and we decide to give up until later. Instead we get some water, swing by the hotel and then out again to try our first day-trip in Syria. How difficult can it be?

Actually, it started by being much trickier than we anticipated: with Tourist Information's help we'd identified where microbuses leave from (just behind the Amir Palace Hotel). Unfortunately, that sounds much simpler than it actually turned out to be: there are four separate little (not so little) compounds with different buses - city buses, minibuses, microbuses and old coaches: different destinations are served by different companies and types of buses. We eventually end up at the microbus station (little Toyotas and Suzuki and other far eastern vans - much more compact than the Transit-type in Turkey), on a tiny bus with no leg room, on a 45-minute, 25km trip out to Deir Ta'ze/Dar Taza (transliterations are different depending on your map - the actual pronunciation is more like D'r Tazuh). The landscape is entirely low, rolling hills with sun-bleached concrete buildings, white rock under a thin layer of soil, stony, dusty and with little fields: it's the kind of landscape you always see behind TV reporters in the West Bank, so I guess we'll be seeing a lot of it over the next couple of countries.
The microbus drops us after winding through Deir Taza, where school's just out for the afternoon (it's 11.30) - most of the kids are in dark green military uniforms, some with strips on their shoulders, and the older girls wear different-coloured headscarves. The smaller kids were a little light-brown jacket/top. "Large village" is probably what Deir Taza is, and they're digging up half the nice roads to lay cables or pipes, which makes walking through it quite treacherous. We get a lift from a dirty little pick-up truck full of (empty) chicken crates to the bottom of the site entrance - the driver offers to take us up the hill for S£100, but we opt to walk. It's a steep climb, in the midday heat, and strenuous going in the midday sun.

From the road, Qala'at Samaan looks like a broken castle: ie. fortification remains ringing a hilltop site. This is because the church here was fortified against (probably Islamic) raiders in the 900s. Qala'at means castle, and is doubtless related to the Turkish "kale" (don't know if they're derived from castellum, or if there's a common source). We pay S£15 instead of S£300, though the guy inspects our cards worryingly closely. Just up past the ticket office and deserted caf�Eis the (reasonably flat, presumably flattened) hill-top site where St. Simon Stylite spent 40-odd years living on top of a pillar, and the next generation built a huge church around it for the pilgrims.

The church is Romanesque and, even though predating St. John's Basilica in Ephesus by a few decades, is much more "modern" in design (they're of a comparable size). The much more classical St. John's was presumably therefore built in an archaic style (to impress?), whereas contemporary Byzantine church building was actually already half-way to the model and modeling that dominated Mediterranean church architecture for centuries.

There are a few other buildings in the immediate vicinity of the church (one quarter was a closed courtyard, so possibly the complex was part of a monastery - some of the buildings are suspiciously refectory/dorm shaped and sized), and the views to east and west and magnificent: it would be a great place to live on top of a pillar. A couple of French speakers were the only other visitors when we arrived (and a dog, which Milla naturally befriended), but a number of locals begin to turn up in the afternoon. We leave the church by the main (oddly south, because of the shape of the hill) entrance, walk along a processional way (presumably once colonnaded, with little gift shops selling pillar-shaped novelties) and reach another complex of buildings.

Again, the main building is a church and again it had a high octagon topped with a dome: more is surviving than at the main church, but only because it's a smaller and more solid structure. There are other bits and pieces, some quite substantial, beyond the church and we can see ruined walls and shells of buildings stretching away down the hill and merging with the little contemporary village at its foot. We finished our visit with a coffee (feeling okay about breaking Ramadan at a tourist site), listen in on four Russians who came by hired car, and then set off back towards Deir Taza. Qala'at Samaan gets 3/10 on the ruins scale.

The hitching situation's looking quite bad: almost nothing passes us, and there are large, gaunt and presumably wild dogs roving the fields. We pass our normal kilometre (we normally walk about a kilometre before someone stops), and are approaching two when we're saved by a guy in a large black Japanese bubble 4x4. He has a crate of enormous pomegranates (like small melons) in the back. When he drops us at the microbus stop, not only won't he take any money but he insists on giving us three of them (he only has about twenty). He was giving another guy a lift as well and this guy not only directs us onto the microbus (we were okay on that, actually - I know what "Haleb" looks like in Arabic), but also pays our fares before we can count out the money. En route we observe a similar phenomenon - when an old guy gets on, one of the other passengers pays for him: this is a very odd country. On the way out this morning, shortly after leaving Aleppo, one of the passengers (apparently chosen by unspoken consent) acted as conductor and collected all the money (dispensing change): this leg (presumably because we boarded after the start of the route) everyone pays as they board.

We get back to Haleb in time to see the vegetable market by the bus stations closing, leaving a thick layer of filth (bits of vegetables, dirt, litter, donkey shit) half-way out into the road. We detour by the museum but it's closed, so instead we return to the hotel as sunset sounds (it's definitely cannon that mark it, of some sort - we can see the puffs of smoke in the sky) and wait until the panic diners have had their fill before setting out to explore again.
The streets, normally jammed with nightmare traffic and chaotic throngs of people, are empty: we stroll across where normally we have to run and dodge (almost no traffic crossings in Haleb, and the zebras seem to be more suggested-places-to-run). It gives us time to admire the architecture, spot little (closed) shops and so on. We grab an interesting shwarma (ie. durum kebab), pass an enticing bakery/patisserie, and go into the Christian Quarter (in Arabic "the New", Al-Jdeida). It has narrow twisting lanes, though not as twisting as the Old Town, and regular little shops and doctors and lawyers - a slightly different ambience from the rest of Haleb. It also has most of the churches, so we do a churches tour (Maronite Cathedral, Greek Catholics and Syrian Catholics) but they're most closed and are late 1800s/early 1900s except the Syrian Catholic "Convent", which seems to be where the Armenian Cathedral is marked on my little Lonely Planet map: presumably the Armenians are on the wane (possibly now that there's an Armenia) - if they are, there's still a lot of Armenian-language signs up (little rounded letters, a bit like the old Celtic Latin script). We find a nice little square with silver shops (the shops gradually begin to open again), where kids half-heartedly pester us for dollars.
After detouring via a big Catholic Church (filling up for mass), just west of Al-Jdeida, we return to the hostel and eventually to bed.

Friday, the day everything's closed in the Arab world and the day (emboldened by our trip yesterday) we want to strike south into the "Dead Cities" - 600-700 villages and towns in this previously densely-populated area, which were abandoned due to Arab pressure, earthquakes, and changing trade routes. We set off just after 09.00 to the microbus station (the streets are almost as deserted today as they were yesterday immediately after sundown), where people direct us onto a microbus/little decorated bus station, where they direct us to still another bus station. A guy there helps us on an ageing (though not yet old) coach which sets off at 10.00, bound south towards Homs: we're pretty much confident we were overcharged (45S£ each), but haven't made enough bus journeys to be sure. Compared with yesterday, the bus stations are very quiet and there's presumably reduced services running, so we're reasonably happy to have found one. It has a little TV which is showing religious programmes and an awful soap - just about all we've seen on TV in Syria so far are awful soaps: the TV in the bus is made by Syronics, as is the one in our room.
Milla sleeps while I watch the (very dull) landscape and the passing towns - my favourite is Maar Debseh, "A place full of inhabitants" according to the sign. Most of the signs, of course, are in Arabic - the place we are aiming for is officially called Ma'aret al-Noman, but is generally known (and signed) as Al-Ma'ara. We end up identifying it by distance, since the road signs go by too quickly for us to decode the Arabic. We're dropped at the side of the highway and immediately surrounded by little microbuses offering to take us to Al-Bara (or Serjilla) for about $4. We eventually shake them off and walk into the centre of town (quite a big place with an extensive fruit/veg market) where we find a microbus gathering place (not really a station). Not only are there buses going to Kafr Nobbel (seriously), which is halfway, but there's also one waiting for Haleb - that'll be useful for our return trip.
Following directions from a local kid, we walk a kilometre or so through Kafr Nobbel and are almost out of town (ie. can almost have a cigarette) when a little blue pickup stops for us. We sit in the dirty back, holding on tightly, as we whiz north towards Al-Bara: en route we pass a run of little rock-carved dwellings/tombs in a small escarpment (memories of Cappadocia) as well as three or four Dead Cities (more Dead Villages, really). They're bits of buildings and walls stretching out in huddles on either side of the road: on one site there's a single person (with small rucksack) clambering around, but otherwise they're completely deserted.

Our lift stops at a little house (presumably his destination, before he picked us up) and then asks whether we're going to Al-Bara or Serjilla: after some debate, we opt for Al-Bara. It's much closer (and we don't want to be under too much of an obligation) and is apparently the largest - Serjilla is smaller, but more complete (less ruined): this is all received wisdom. He takes us into Al-Bara, the modern village, and then a further two kilometres along a tarmacced road to a pyramid tomb. Pyramid tombs are a principle attraction of Al-Bara - little maussolea (?) with high roofs rising to a point: much like Ataturk's mausoleum was originally supposed to look.

The driver hangs around, seemingly intent on driving us from notable ruin to notable ruin: not wanting to impose, and not wanting to pick up a guide who'll expect baksheesh, we explain that we'd rather just potter about. He leaves us cheerfully, if confused, and declines the offer of money: hey-ho. We almost immediately swap him for a much more irritating local - a little blond kid of seven or eight who latches onto us (we're the only visitors in sight) and bleats "money" every fifteen seconds or so. We ignore him, walk away, mock his little falsetto voice, applaud his occasional hand-wringing and tears - none of which helps. Only when we follow a road away from the main ruins does he finally stop following us.
Following Lonely Planet's advice, we strike north across some pretty tough terrain (interspersed with little fields of olive trees) looking for ruined churches. We descend into a little rolling valley and up the other side, but only come across large and imposing sections of walls (residential, by the look of them). Also we come upon a number of groups out picking olives (it's the end of the olive season, judging by the state of the trees) - family affairs, mostly: mum, dad, three kids and a couple of stepladders. Nice thing to do on a Friday, Islam's equivalent of Sunday. They're all friendly (especially considering we're tramping through their fields) and point us in a variety of contradictory directions.

We cross back over the road and tramp through more little tilled fields of olives, and find the best sections of ruins downhill and south of that first tomb we saw. There are superbly-engineered arches standing in free space, or inside overgrown buildings (still capable of supporting no-longer-extant upper floors), stone steps leading upwards to nothing, and a couple of large open spaces and stretches of paved roads (it's quite similar to some of the back-street areas in the less visited areas of Pompeii). The highlight is a sudden open courtyard, ringed with fairly complete walls and some streets leading off - it's not cultivated and has no wild trees either, which we presume means there's only a thin layer of soil (ie. there are flagstones underneath).

Eventually we reach the second major tomb, and meet a friendly Vietnamese guy (being ferried around the site on the back of a scooter, driven by an enterprising local 12-year old), who knows someone in Timisoara and speaks a few words of Romanian. This second, larger tomb has some excellent stone detail, though the very top of the roof has given way and there are a couple of blocks at the back which have refitted in modern times (presumably removed earlier by tomb robbers). The gate's locked, but inside we can see five sarcophagi with lids on. We follow the road to another complex of high walls which, after close examination, we guess used to be baths - although much of the site is visible, its seen very little archaeology and there are no explanatory signs.

We look around some (worked) holes in the ground, discuss whether to hit the most distant building (a monastery, apparently), check out a rock tomb, and decide yes - to wander up to the monastery. There's a taxi waiting there (for two French women), and finally a noticeboard about the site: amusingly, someone's cross out "Roman and Byzantine" (ie. the ruins) and written "Syrian Arab" instead. Apparently it was still the site of an archbishopric early into the second millennium, and was finally abandoned after an earthquake in 1158. Another amusing note is that, despite being a Byzantine town, it was apparently "liberated" by the Arabs (as Aleppo was, according to some of the tourist documentation). The monastery's quite well-preserved, but disappointingly small and dull (all walls instead of arches and columns) - the views from there are the best (including the broken top of a third pyramid tomb).

It's getting later, though (15.30) - everything will stop soon for two hours around sunset), so we trek a couple of kilometres back into the centre of modern Al-Bara. En route, we pass the usual kids in the outskirts (there are a lot of blondes - far more than in Turkey) - they say "hello" or "welcome" and then follow us asking for pens ("steelo"): possibly there's a good second-hand market for pens in Syria. No sooner do we reach the main street than a brightly coloured and talisman-filled bus stops for us - it's driven by a 12 or 13 year old boy, and is going to Serjilla: he drops us at the Serjilla turn-off, just out of town, and we almost immediately get a lift from a couple of young guys in a white pickup. They're going all the way to Al-Maara, insist we squeeze in the front with them, have loud music playing (apparently our driver is the singer - possible: it's a pretty tatty home-produced cassette), drive very fast and wave to half the people we pass. They also shout "donkey" at anyone going slower (especially bikes and scooters) - it's a hoot.
They take us to the main highway, offer us tea since there won't be any buses leaving from here for a while now, and then intercept a truck driver they know - he is going to Aleppo, but there's some problem (we don't understand the Arabic, but he's probably planning to stop shortly for iftaar). Not to worry - there's an impromptu coach stop just up the road, and a large and comfortable coach just about to leave when we arrive. It only costs us 20 each. Sunset passes while we're onboard, but doesn't seem to be marked in any way - possibly we just missed it because we were asleep. The bus drops us at the bus station(s) just a couple of blocks south of our hotel - the streets are again almost deserted, and we stroll leisurely across the 5-lane main road which is normally a death-trap.
We wander around the area we're staying in (it's all car repair/spares shops, mostly run by Armenians), have another couple of shwarmas from our place of last night (we meet a guy from Beirut there, who had a Romanian wife for several years, and speaks much better Romanian than I do), and then try the patisserie along the road. They give us a little bowl of eight pieces, and a couple of coffees, and then charge us a horrendous amount. On reflection, only very well-dressed people seemed to be shopping there and more people were looking than spending, so it possibly wasn't the place for a couple of budget travellers to nip into. The best part of the experience was when, at prayer-time, they moved some of the chairs/tables in one corner, laid down some carpets, and half the staff did the evening prayers routine.
We return to the hotel, where Milla eventually becomes less pissed-off with the bakery experience, and then sleep: all the other foreigners (there were several last night in the lounge) seem to have left.

Our last day in Aleppo: we get up at a leisurely 07.15 and potter around packing and sorting stuff. We head out at 10.00, leaving our bags, determined to change Travellers' Cheques and it's just as well we were determined. We try the main branch of the "Commercial Bank of Syria" (it seems to be the only bank) at the edge of the Old Town which on our other attempt said charged no commission, but claimed their computer was broken: this time they're now ready to change, but with $5 per cheque commission - $15 on my $100 and two $50s. The little branch over the road suggested we try elsewhere, despite having rates up. The exchange place we saw on our first day out is closed. After a wander we eventually find another branch (of Commercial Bank of Syria - same as all the above), with no latin-character signs outside, next door to the big one. They study my passport, require my original receipt from Thomas Cook (!), take 15 minutes, and only charge $0.30 for the whole transaction, at what seems a decent rate (ie. better than we've been offered on the street). Swollen with success, and banknotes, we buy some food and dump it and most of the money back at the hotel: the whole exercise took over an hour.

The next visit we do takes in the museum (they don't like our student cards because they're handwritten, so we decide not to like their museum), and three bus stations (including one we hadn't visited before): we're heading for Lattakia on the coast, and options are 100S£ leaving regularly or 45S£ leaving at 16.00. We buy some baklava, take a couple of photographs around Aleppo, check our local kebab/shwarma place (closed, like most of the food places), and return to the hotel for a second time. One more circuit sees us pick up cigarettes (foreign brands are all $0.80 to $1.20), get more passport photos ($4 for 16: 8 each), and shop without success for a maglite bulb and contact lenses. We hit the bus station at about 15.15, in plenty time to buy a kilo of baklava (the first lot was pretty good) and buy tickets. Unfortunately going for the cheapest option turns out to have been a questionable decision, since the bus is an aging and uncomfortable Isuzu job.

The bus officially leaves at 16.00, but 16.00 again seemed to be about the time most of the passengers started turning up. There's no luggage compartment, and definitely no space at the cramped bench-like seats, so our rucksacks sit in the aisle by our bench. Surreally, one man turns up with a second-hand dentist's chair, half-wrapped in cardboard. Two people clamber onto the roof, and with the aid of three or four on the ground, they manage to haul it up. At 16.20 we finally set off, out of the bus station and straight into the pre-sunset rush hour, on a brightly-coloured old bus filled with good-luck-talismans (eyes, mottos, stickers of cars, beads) with a dentist's chair on the roof, and we're definitely regretting out decision to travel this way already. Aleppo, when we finally leave it 15 minutes later, gets a pretty good 5/10 - it's large and busy and chaotic and colourfully flamboyant, but also run-down, dirty, sometimes claustrophobic, and not really going anywhere.
Not long into our journey, with the radio tuned to a wailing religious man, the sun appears to set: possibly part of the wailing indicated exactly when. All the passengers brought little black plastic bags onboard with them and these are broken open and food is passed around: there's also a plastic watering can of water, from which people drink. They have one glass, which gets passed from person to person, starting from the front of the bus: apart from the water, we end up with bread, fruit and enough stuff for a small meal - we're meanwhile being very surreptitious with our little wrapped bag of baklava.
The journey wears on (and our bums wear out) into the night - the man with the chair gets off (getting it down is the same struggle as getting it up), a few people get on, and we stop for fifteen minutes at a cluster of cafés (possibly on the outskirts of Ariha). We're tricked into thinking it's a quick toilet stop by the fact that the driver leaves the engine running, and so we don't nip out to buy something to eat. Ah well. And then we're off again, down dramatically into the N-S Orontes valley (we'd have liked to do this journey by daylight, but lost that option by getting up and out so late on other days) - judging by the spread of lights, it's a pretty densely populated area. There are also broad flashes of lightning, and light rain begins to fall.
At about this point, just after crossing the river, the bus stops - from what we understand, we're the only people going on to Lattakia, so it's not worth their time do the trip. There's a busy microbus, and an arrangement is made with its driver - we clamber in, with our rucksacks wedged into the few free spaces, for an even more uncomfortable journey: we definitely should have taken the more expensive bus. Actually, it gets dramatically worse, since on the climb up the hill out of the Orontes valley the bus engine overheats: the driver abandons us at a little shop and sets off back to town for mechanical assistance. We chat with a big friendly black guy, who imparts the information that the driver intends returning for us once the problem's fixed. Great. Mind you, at least the rain's still quite light.
A number of minutes pass - enough to have a cigarette and to admire the completely overcast sky and occasional flashes of lightning nearby, and then another minibus pulls up: it already has three or four people onboard, so it's even more of a squeeze when our party (plus two rucksacks) all squeeze in. We've still got over 50km to go, so we settled in as best we can (by this time I've already eaten half a kilo of baklava): about halfway, the driver stops for a tea and takes the opportunity to collect money. He seems to be looking for money even from those who paid the other driver - a major argument, with a touch of physical contact, breaks out between this driver and an old guy sitting next to us. Another is in the process of starting with us as well, when the big black guy intervenes and seems to pay for both of us and other old guy. When we ask, he assures us there's "no problem" (which wasn't what we asked).
Eventually, after several uncomfortable hours, two changes of bus, a spell in the rain and an argument with a driver, we arrive in Lattakia - Syria's main port and an Arabic spelling which is going to take a while to get used to. We're dropped by the train station, and as everyone else fades away I have a chat with the black guy (with the intention of reimbursing him): before I know it, though, he's offering help, his phone number, and so on. I manage not to get invisted back to his place (his hospitality is embarrassing) and we're only saved from a taxi ride into the centre by Milla. We wave him off, and set off on foot (having got our bearings): almost immediately, two all-in-black women accost us and force bread on us, from a black plastic bag of the stuff. They seem to be just wandering the streets dispensing bread . . . welcome to Lattakia.

In the centre (after 1.5km) our hotel-of-choice seems to be closed (the neon signage is dead, and the door's padlocked): we find another hotel next door (virtually), get the price down to $6 a night and go for it. Milla's not overjoyed - the shower's a bit manky, then toilet is distinctly mankier (it's the puddle of shit and congregation of flies which define that comparison), the route to the "facilities" passes several other rooms and the hotel entrance. But hey - we're not here for long (two nights), it's a good price, we've walked quite far already (and it's raining) - also we've got a couple of chairs and a table, and a nice little balcony. So we move in, and then go out to explore almost immediately.
We head roughly towards the shore, noting an apparently normal internet caf�E and only 40% of the women we pass are wearing headscarves: there are a couple of churches (one Presbyterian) as well as all the mosques, and some straight streets of fashionable shops. Oh, and no real supermarkets (they don't seem to have the concept - it's all mini-markets, and they all stock an identical and limited range of products). The same four or five dominant items we saw on sale in Aleppo also dominate here: in order to support this number of vendors, every Syrian man must have at least three watches, two pairs of sunglasses, twelve shirts and enough shoes to embarrass Emelda Marcos (actually, for muslims, shoes seem to be a consumable items with all that on-off at mosques). The only differences we spot are a larger number of confectionary bakeries (patisseries), and much more citrus fruit (and better quality) on sale. We find a little shop with the Pope and Mary on the wall (rather than notices saying "Remember our suffering families in Palestine") and buy water and alcohol there.
We spend the late evening sitting on the balcony, drinking beer, playing cards and eating (another) half kilo of baklava.

Our room looks across not only the Assad statue (this one makes him look like a Gerry Anderson puppet) but also a school: I don't know, but I'm beginning to find the dark green trousered uniforms quite attractive on the older girls - probably only in comparison with the shapeless tents that most women here dress like. There speaks a married man . . . Milla meanwhile risks the shower, which she shares with two cockroaches - she's really not happy here. We set out around 09.00, walk up to Tourist Information (everything in Lattakia is miles from everything else), get a map and enquire about buses, and almost before we know it are on a microbus uncomfortably heading north towards the little town of Al-Haffeh, nearest large settlement to Qala'at Salahdin (or Saladin, or Salah ad-Din - there's a bunch of variant English spellings: we're talking about the chivalrous opponent of Richard, Coiffeur de Lion). As we head out of Lattakia, there are more public buildings adorned with both Syrian and Palestinian flags. That whole situation's really weird - it's as if the UN decided to give northern Belgium to the French-speakers only, and the Dutch fled into neighbouring countries, where camps were built for them and flags hung in sympathy and military assistance supplied. Or Texas to the Mexicans, I suppose.

Anyway, Al-Haffeh turns out to be a fairly bland town strung out along an east-west road: as soon as we get off the bus, we're accosted by locals with taxis or bikes offering to take us to Qala'at Salahdin. We manage to break free, but not before some of them laugh at our idea of walking - that worries us a bit. It turns out to be pretty straightforward: we just follow the signs, both for the site and the similarly-named restaurant. As usual, we don't get far out of town before a lift turns up (a microbus this time): it takes us a little past where we'd reached, over a little rise, and there's the castle before us. It's built along a triangular wedge, with steep ravines on the two long sides, and is very dramatic. We lost sight of it for a bit, as the road hairpins down one side and then up the other, and we finally reach the top at the third narrow side of the castle, and it turns out to be the most impressive. Although this side originally had a flat approach, the Crusaders cut an artificial ravine across it - they left one needle-like stalactite-like rock tower in the middle, to support the centre of a narrow bridge.

The microbus drops us at the car-park (only 3km or so from Al-Haffeh, but that last stretch would have been a strenuous climb), refuses to take any money, and from there we ascend some steps up to the narrow and tower-protected entrance. The man inside turns out to be very unhelpful, though not really through his fault. First up, from this year ISIC cards are all computer-printed so the Syrian government's decided not to accept older, handwritten ones (as at Aleppo museum) - so we'll have to pay the full price ($3 instead of $0.30 - Syrians, incidentally, get in for $0.60): they've also decide that no-one over 34 can be a student (that's me). Hm - that'll be a problem, at least in Syria. Secondly - and presumably because this is Ramadan and they're all off home early for iftaar, the site's closing at 14.00. It's just past 12.00 now, so we have less than 2 hours. Considering the hassle of getting here (and the hassle of going somewhere else today), we go in anyway.

It's . . . well, it's fair example of Western European castle-building: there are solid towers at all the corners and protecting the entrances (the impossible Dali-esque ex-bridge, and the steep and narrow climb up the side). There are two extensive cisterns to ensure water supply. There are very impressive gothic-vaulted stables under the masonry of one corner. Slit-windows, crenellations, gothic-arched doors, a massive central keep - this place has to the lot, complete with magnificent views and a ridge-top location of Macchu Picchu-esque severity. It's really pretty good and we like it a lot despite the occasional shower. We walk around the inner courtyard, climb up all the towers (no fencing or safety barriers here - or lights, mostly: not a place to bring energetic children, unless you want to be rid of them), and then explore the lower courtyard.

There are a number of buildings standing here, though a walk round the outer wall entailed a bit too much vegetation-hacking for us, with our time restriction: one of these buildings seems to be a little orthodox church, facing east - so it's out of alignment with the castle's other buildings. Its presence begs another two questions - firstly, what were orthodox believers doing here? And secondly, there must have been a much bigger church here originally, so where is it? Either (we figure) it's the big building at the summit of the hill (which we've been calling the keep), or it's underneath the later Ayubbid Palace. This raises another issue for us, which is that the local authorities are engaged in comprehensive rebuilding of the Ayubbid Palace while letting the older, more interesting and impressive Crusader sections fall into disrepair. The central keep (or church) is just a pile of rubble, and a couple of the other towers are heading that way - ah well.

Amusingly, to solve the dichotomy of a Francophile but Crusader-hating nation, they distinguish by using "Frankish" to describe the people who built the castle. Anyway - we could have done with an extra half-hour to take things more leisurely, but managed to squeeze pretty much the whole site into our available time - it gets 4/10 on the ruins scale, but could creep up to 5/10 if they put a lot of work into it. We head out, and get almost to the bottom of the ravine before someone stops - it's a weird guy who insists I try his cologne while we drive: we got out pretty quickly, at the top of the other side of the ravine, where there's a restaurant and good views. They give us coffee (well - we buy coffee from them), we watch a woman terrified of cats, and we admire the views of the castle before heading off again.

Another microbus picks us up just along the road - it's going all the way to Lattakia, so we hop in - after a maniacal drive back (it's getting close to sunset), and dropping the sole other occupant, the driver tries to charge us a fortune. After some debate and conversation, we get him down to a reasonable microbus fare, and wander back to the hotel.
After a quick turnaround, we got out on a potter around the city again to see what there is to see - apart from shops and stalls we also find a number of churches, mostly Greek Orthodox though some Syrian Orthodox. There's a nice little church hidden just back from the main road to the station: Milla talks a guy there into opening it for us (they're both orthodox) - 2nd century, apparently. At the largest church (possibly cathedral?) there's a wedding going on and Milla insists we wait to see what the bride is wearing - white, it transpires, though she must have needed a lot of material (if you know what I mean). At still another church there seems to be some kind of youth club going on: it's busy and seems popular - possibly it's one of the few places young people can mix with the opposite sex. The church winning converts by playing the sex card.
It's our 6-month wedding anniversary tomorrow, so we start looking for somewhere to eat: Lattakia centre turns out to be a bit of a disaster as far as little restaurants goes, however. We end up at a little pseudo-Italian place which is surrounded by non-dining kids (this particular street junction seems to be another favourite hang-out). Inside we have a pizza and a strange Arabesque lasagne - more like a chicken shwarma mixed with some pasta, with a thick layer of cheesy, yoghurty moussaka on top. Very odd, not to be tried again, and it wasn't large enough for a meal.
We also discuss the high- and low-points of our marriage to date, the things we dislike about each other, and reasons we might split up in the future. Naturally we leave hardly talking to each other: having turned away a woman selling roses at the restaurant (that got me -6/10) I look for other florists, but they only seem to sell plastic flowers here in Lattakia. We end the evening/night discussing plans for our next few days.